Outside of the immediately visible changes to the map and the backgrounds, there are two cluster zones (one in the Empire, one in the Roidhunate) and two nebulas, one north of the Empire and one south of the Roidhunate. They are quite packed with barbarians. Otherwise not much changes.

BTW, if you do find a planet with wild prices, can you post your save? I'm really having troubles reproducing that issue. The one you had seen was an Imperial planet right? You remember the event that was present?

The craziest prices are always from an industrial boom. And it's definitely been Imperial or fringe imperial (like those mixed imperial/independent trader worlds). I haven't seen industrial booms in other factions, but my experience is currently limited to Imperial, Independents, and Betelgeuse, so I'll keep an eye out.

The event trigger is where one planet strikes a rich ore vein and then nearby system prices explode. It gets ridiculously high to the point where you can get something like a third-of to half-of a billion credits in one run of a loaded up Argosy.

One other things I've noticed, regarding the background galaxies, is an issue with what looks like half-pixels as a bi-product of zooming:http://i.imgur.com/gJfCcfZ.png

I'm not sure if it'll carry over to this game, because I don't know how the images are being handled. But a solution I've used in the past (particularly with sprites) is to have a bleed. Essentially, instead of using the entire image, we used a couple pixels less on each side. So, when the half-pixel issues came up, it'd use the information in that bleed area rather than the nothing (presumably null) that lies at the edge of the image. I suppose it's kind of a hack rather than a solution, but, visually least, it was fixed!

EDIT: Still can't get Betelgeuse faction to go past 50%. Running missions, killing Barbarians/pirates in their systems. No dice. Is there some other trigger that I need to get beyond this wall?

Assuming you are using Windows 10, the saves are in your user directory, then AppData\Roaming\noximperii\saves . I had checked those events and seen no issues... there must be a random factor also.

For that background issue the cause is much simpler, stray pixels in one of the texture's alpha layer. I've fixed it in local, it will be in the next update.

I'm puzzled by that Betelgeuse thing. I'll double-check it, a "wall" is not intended but there is such a feature in Naev. I had disabled it, maybe this is failing for some reason. I'm working on Betelgeuse faction missions BTW.

I'd like some feedback on the look of the map and backgrounds, independently of bugs. Not sure whether to tweak it more or not.

Just started Nox and enjoying it's ambiance, though some graphic choices detract from that.

For example the galaxy map: gold glows for inhabited, raw blue hyperspace lines, the system matrix quite regular (I mean if no route this system, then the next for sure). As the map is proceduraly made, I'd have a greater randomness of distances, perhaps there can be clusters of stars closely linked while having rarer the inter-cluster routes?

Here's an example from another game and the 0.50 current map, star colours code trade opportunities, or regime, or other aspects.

More than the map, though, that white hyperjump pulse is too intense, even making me to close the eyes. Uhm, could it be black instead of white? As in entering another dimension, senses don't work. Perhaps without the movement lines?

While speeding in the system, those many lines (white to grey), could they be reworked, made finer, almost transparent? Perhaps add a trailing shadow of the ship (or just that trailing shadow)?

Regarding your feedback:- on the map, the colored circles actually show the faction (gold is the Empire) and the amount of presence (the larger the "halo" the more there is). Endless Sky looks neater but has less info... their trade map feature is pretty cool though and I'll probably do something like that some day.- I hadn't thought about it but I agree regarding the line colours. A light grey would be more legible and less "funky". I'll try it out.- the system matrix is indeed very regular (in 0.5 there are actually a few exceptions: the two clusters and the "rifts"). I could try to make it more random but it's tough to achieve that and yet keep things workable. I had versions of my setup where random "gaps" between systems were more commons, and it often led to results that made no sense like faction systems isolated from the rest. Solving this would also require a much more sophisticated faction placement system unfortunately.- agreed on the hyperjump white flash, that's straight from Naev and giving it thought I do think it is too strong. I'll try a fade-to-black instead. I like the star lines though They are less intense in 0.5 final than in the betas however.- the lines while speeding are a bit of a work in progress, I made my own system in 0.5 instead of the Naev one. Making them less pro-eminent might indeed be better. A shadow of the ship would be cool, but I have no idea how to do it...

Don't hesitate to post more feedback as you progress! BTW you can upgrade to 0.5 final, it's compatible with the recent betas.

For the star map, most systems have 4+ lanes to neighbouring systems, almost no dead ends and almost every system is encased in a star heptagon. I'd try more variance in number of stars and number of lanes (even if distance is small enough it doesn't have to be a lane there) and generate a few maps (store the seeds) and have them coloured for regime and population/services. At a glance you can discern if that'll work and have the game use that particular seed amongst the others you've found to be "good".

That shadow while on SETA, could be similar to the sun halo (using alpha I guess for the fade into the background). The same here. The image of the ship, greyed out and at 90% or so transparency, placed "under" the ship at 5? pixels intervals. Overlapping would make the tail more consistent. Another way, a tail of 50 progressively more transparent ship images.

Could the P planet selector first cycle through the inhabited planets in the system and having the most developed planet selected first. Or the nearest? As is now, it cycles alphabetically through the planet list (rock..., rock..., rock..., where is that starport?.., rock...., is this the one?!?...). P is a fast selector. If near an inhabited planet, I'd expect to select it (most likely I was traveling there and for some reason, changed focus and now I want to continue). If not near a planet...in most cases I'd want to go somewhere populated, if only to have intercepted the pirate following me.

Looks like the official missions did the trick. I can go above 50% w/ Betelgeuse now. Thanks!

Galaxies and other celestial formations are a nice touch to the various systems. Definitely helps make it feel like you're in a different part of space. One thing that did stand out is the background you use for the Hyades Cluster comes off a bit heavy and, for lack of a better term, is very rectangular.

The Galactic map is nice; it's an awesome idea. I really like that I can use the text as landmarks, which is especially useful when picking which missions to take in the mission menu.

I'm not a huge fan of a couple of the chosen fonts, however. The Roidhunate one is not only stylized, but very condensed, which I find makes it less friendly to read than the Imperial faction font. The Ixum/Betelgeuse/Rift/Zone/Waste font is even guiltier in that regard. Along with the fact that the 'n,' 'g,' and 't' characters (probably others, too) are all ambiguously shaped, the letters in that font also seem to purposefully alternate between lowercase and uppercase. This makes that font extra hard to decipher quickly.

Sorry to rag on it. I do User Interfaces and Graphic Design, so stuff like this stands out to me.

Other notes:

Assuming New Rila is supposed to be Russian, it should be Новая Рила. 'New' describes Rila, so the endings need to match.

In the crew tab/menu, some of the people have their list of buffs truncated (Betelgian Expert Scout, for example). I've also noticed truncated text in Relation Requirements in the Outfit menu (Merchant Prince was definitely one of them).

EDIT:Seems like only the faction missions themselves increase my standing once I'm at or above 50%. Trades (the ones that say they'll increase my standing) and killing baddies doesn't contribute anymore, by the look of things.

EDIT:Now that we can't buy licenses, there's currently no way to get any of the Betelgeuse ships/outfits.

- Regarding the star generation, I'll try and make it a bit more random, that "skipping lanes" idea is easy to implement. However I am worried about playability. Also, currently there is no system to detect when lanes would cross, and that's something I want to avoid (except in clusters where they are part of the distinct look).- That seed thing is not doable without major, major reworks to how I generate the universe: it's done progressively as the player explore, and thus the order in which stars are generated is a major factor in the randomness. Could be done but I'd have to think hard about how it would work.- For the shadow idea my concern is making it work with Naev's texture pipeline which is clunky and which I don't understand very well to be honest. I'll have a look at it though, the idea is intriguing.- Good point on the planet selector. I have not touched that feature at all; in Naev it hardly mattered as there are far less planets and you can't land or select the empty ones anyway. That one shouldn't be difficult to implement.

- agreed on Hyades, I need to rework that texture. Probably have two versions also, one for the smaller version you see from far away and one for within the cluster itself.- you have a point on the fonts, I went too far in the "old map design" I'm open to suggestions... Ideally I'd like something distinct for the Roidhunate, something that looks a little "foreign", but not as heavy as the current one. For the "neutral" font maybe I'll just use a basic standard font, will be cleaner looking. This one looks gimmicky. Maybe I'll keep it only for Betelgeuse, with its "Italian" theme?- New Rila is Bulgarian. (Rila is the biggest monastery in the country). Not sure I got the case right...- for the Betelgian licences, the Rastapopoulos missions give them to you for free, you don't need to buy them.- I'm aware of that text truncation bug, I'll look into it- I'll recheck that relation cap thing. Did you have the same issue with the Empire and the Roidhunate?

And if you do UI and graphic designs, don't hesitate to suggest changes! It's really not my strong point... For that matter, if you can do decent looking icons and things of that kind, I wouldn't mind

-Rastapopoulos only has two missions. How do you get the other licenses? Once those are completed, he shows up in the Missions menu, but disappears when Approached. Does Approaching him automatically give the licenses?

-I didn't have the 50% cap issue with the Empire, but that may have been because I'm actually doing their story missions. I'll have to double check whether doing their generic Missions still increases the standing. I'll get back to you on that.

Rastapopoulos should give you five missions in total. Are you playing with 0.5 release? 0.5 beta 6 only had the first two.

For icons I was more thinking of the ones I use in the crew and commodity views. Just an idea. You wouldn't do 2D graphics in general by any chance? I'd kill for new portraits, particularly for the alien species